DETERMINED: Tauranga Sports' first-five John Dodd makes a run up the sideline against Rangataua on Saturday. PHOTO/ANDREW WARNER
DETERMINED: Tauranga Sports' first-five John Dodd makes a run up the sideline against Rangataua on Saturday. PHOTO/ANDREW WARNER
Tauranga Sports and Whakatane Marist remain unbeaten on top of the Baywide Premier division after round three played in wet weather on Saturday.
Defending champions Tauranga Sports showed they can play a tight, conservative forward game in defeating Rangataua Sports 20-5 at Te Ariki Park in Maungatapu while Whakatane won26-5 away to Arataki.
Mount Maunganui Sports beat Greerton Marist 23-16 at Greerton Park to stay third, Te Puna beat Rotoiti away 30-13 to be fourth on the standings with Te Puke Sports lying fifth after a hard fought 23-15 win over Whakarewarewa in Rotorua.
A converted Grayden Scheres try with 12 minutes remaining enabled Te Puke to take home an important win. Te Puke No8 Chulainn Mabbett-Sowerby had an outstanding game and was awarded his side's player of the day.
Tauranga Sports may have a new coach in Zane Winslade and plenty of new faces this year but the club's winning habit and culture remains the same.
Winslade was pleased to beat Rangataua who have enjoyed wins over Tauranga Sports at their home ground in recent seasons.
"We have a lot of respect for them with what they had done against Te Puke and in the past against us so that was a big game for us. We are pretty happy with the result," he said.
"It was a good, gutsy team effort. There were a lot of mistakes due to the weather. Our tight five did pretty well to be honest in difficult conditions.
"We have a core group of guys from last year so we are able to draw on that experience and try and build on the success we had last year. We also have a few fresh faces in there which has added something new as well."
Rangataua put in plenty of effort and were competitive at the tackled ball as always but only had a second half try to show for their efforts.
